BlogWood: MT Archives

Council caves, trees lost

The Tampa City Council has spread its legs and invited the construction industry to use it hard and then pave over its hole. Having talked for months about tightening Tampa’s tree ordinance and making fines large and enforceable enough to actually save some trees, the Council yesterday decided to do nothing. Well, not quite nothing... the Council decided to speed up the permitting process so that building and tree killing can commence in a streamlined fashion. This should be good news for all those downtrodden South Tampa homeowner types who up to this point have been forced to live in a virtual, albeit temporary, hell for weeks on end as they wait for word from the City as to whether or not they will be allowed to kill their 200 year old Oaks to make way for their new zero-lotline 25,000 square feet Barbie Dream House. From The Tampa Tribune:

Home builders Wednesday chipped away at plans to toughen Tampa's tree protection rules.

In fact, by the end of a two-hour meeting, city leaders had switched from considering tougher protection for trees protections to agreeing to speed up permits needed to build new homes.

For weeks, Tampa City Council members talked about toughening the rules so builders would not consider fines for toppling protected trees just part of the cost of doing business.

But at a council workshop Wednesday, a group of about 10 builders told city officials that new rules would end up costing property owners more money.

Having to build around protected trees makes land less valuable, builder John Sample said.

``We are talking about these trees as if they are an endangered species,'' said Sample, who advocates getting rid of all city tree protection rules. ``We have got a dense urban forest, and it's not going anywhere.''

Council Chairwoman Linda Saul- Sena agreed to back off on consideration of tougher rules and focus on better enforcement of existing rules. She also assured the builders the city would work to speed the approval of construction plans, a process officials said takes about four weeks.

``We don't want to hold you guys up,'' Saul-Sena she told the builders.